The present invention relates to Query and Response information retrieval systems and, more particularly, to such systems capable of receiving a user entered question, processing the data representing the question, searching local and/or web based databases for information relevant to an answer to user's query, and conveying such answer information to the user.
Systems of this general type are known that enable a user to access a preprocessed database of predetermined standard answers to a predetermined set of user queries. The standard system responds to a user-entered query by processing the query to determine one or a combination of key words. The system includes a look-up table to determine which predetermined, stored standard answer or answers have the key word or combination of key words may be responsive to the query. The system activates a link to the predetermined, stored answer (sentence) that includes the matched key word(s) between the user query and the look-up table.
Such known systems are quite limited in the scope or subject matter of the queries that the system can properly process. For example, if user query comprises words that lack all the key words pre-stored in the look-up table, then the system cannot respond with any stored answer or it may respond with an incorrect prestored answer. Also, the known systems are limited to a particular subject matter, such as shareholder inquiries of a particular stock company, in order to focus the queries on more likely pre-stored key words.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system that does not rely on pre-stored key work matching and that can process the user query to gain an understanding of information or concepts requested, then searching preprocessed and knowledge bases of storing candidate concepts with links to databases of full documents in which such concepts appear. In addition, there is a need for such a system that can dynamically search all databases of stored documents on the World Wide Web for concept(s) in the user query, downloads candidate documents, processes them dynamically to determine if the downloaded document contains an answer to the query. If it does, then extracting the answer and presenting it to the user and adding the query, answer, and document link to the answer database.